June 3, 2010

She stood on that desolate beach – ankle deep in water. Deep in thought , deep dwelling in the ocean of her memories. Her feet sunk into the sand , so deep that even the fiercest of waves that lash at her feet would not budge her stance.

Heartbreak.

With a nimble, slight move of her hand, she reached into the knee pocket of her cargo capri and took it out. Looked at it with a sense of love that one often associates with mothers and their infants. She closed her eyes tightly and 2 big tears plopped from either side and streamed down her clear, embonpoint , cheeks.

Surrender.

She closed her fist so tight protecting with such fervour, that her nails dug in deep into her palm. But she needed to let go. She needed to falsify the very theory that a life without him is more plausible than any standing , victorious truth of this world.

Walk on.

With a deep breath – she flung it out so far into the seas, that even the mermaids within would have to contest on a treasure hunt to retrieve the very thing that she had let go of. Her heart felt a sense of legerity as she smiled. Her captor long gone , she was finally free. She walked along the shore as the sunset settled the end of her sorrows .. the footprints of the moment imprinted in her heart forever , yet as the hungry ocean lapped up every sign of it with such tempestuous passion. No, She’ll live on to fight another day. Fight her demons away.

May 27, 2010

What this is : A fictional account inspired by Lord Shiva and Hindu faith – that the gods we worship could have been legendary men who walked the earth and their glory and valor immortalizing them to the level of worship.

What this is not : Worth all the hype and hoopla

First up – the cover design and the summary at the back is enough to invoke a lot of curiosity from anyone who is even remotely interested in our culture. A friend of mine – deceived by the same had bought a hard copy of it and read it page to page sincerely and recommended it as a nice light read. And that is what it is. It doesn’t need much dwelling into the grey areas or reading into the lines.

The first half of the book is pretty quick in pace , when one starts reading with the a fore mentioned curiosity they are almost willing to finish it at one stretch. However – the second half gets boring and slow and predictably cheesy. After having seen umpteen instance of prophecies and the concept of ‘The One’ in many places, one tends to get bored.

I happened to stumble on the official website of the Shiva trilogy – of which this is the first , and the author Amish is an IIM Kolkata alumni.

What is up with IIM alumni and writing time-pass paperback novels ?? 🙂

Any genuine book lover would not give this more than 2 out of 5.

But yes , I will wait up to read if the other 2 installments will be worth it.

April 25, 2010

They say sometimes that you can visit the Lord only if he wishes to let you see him 🙂 It could not be more true than it is now. 🙂

After trying a lot since 12th std (yep , school) I was finally able to visit Surutapalli last saturday with 2 of my friends from work. These guys were more hell bent upon visiting Kalahasti.

Now what is so wonderful about Surutapalli, one may ask. Here are some facts about the place –

ABOUT 56 KM from Chennai, on the Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh border, is a small village called Surutapalli, which houses the only “Sayana Sivan” (sleeping Siva) called Pallikondeswarar. The temple has an interesting Sthala Puranam. Sage Valmiki prayed to Lord Rama and the Lord gave him darshan. After defeating Ravana, and before reaching Ayodhya, Rama stayed at this place. So the two together prayed to Lord Siva. The Lingam, which Valmiki prayed to, is called Valmikeshwarar and the one Rama prayed to is Ramalingeshwarar. At present these two Lingams face each other. Harihara Bhugga, a king of the Vijayanagar dynasty, built this temple. There are 276 Saiva Sthalams, which have received the Thirumurais of Appar, Sundarar, Manikkavachagar and Thirugnanasambhandar. Their time was before the 10th century. Since this temple was built much later, it did not receive the Thirumurai.
Once Indra lost his kingdom and found that only if he consumed the Divine Nectar he could rule. So there was a tug of war between the devas and asuras to obtain this nectar. As they were churning the ocean, before the nectar came the poison. So there was complete pandemonium. Lord Siva then swallowed the poison and came to be called Nilakandan. A stunned Parvathi quickly stopped the poison at the throat. Siva then became drowsy and selected Surutapalli, where he is seen sleeping on the lap of Parvathi.
Narada, meanwhile, passed on the message and down came the Devas, Brahma, Vishnu and the Saptarishis, to have darshan. They were promptly stopped by Nandi who asked them all to come after some time, as Shiva was resting. All of them waited. Siva, when he woke up, was filled with extreme happiness and danced (“Ananda Thandavam”). This day, when the Devas, Brahma, Vishnu, Narada and Saptarishis had Siva darshan was a Krishnapaksha Trayodasi (Stiravaram, Saturday). This is the Mahapradosham day. Pradhosham, generally, is a significant occasion observed with great piety at all Siva temples. This temple was one of the favourites of the Paramacharya, who stayed here for 10 days, and in whose memory a Dhyana Manadapam is to be constructed. Pallikondeswarar’s Sannidhi is seen in Kasi (Hanuman Ghat) and the Sage of Kanchi wished that devotees visiting Kasi would follow Pallikondeswarar to Surutapalli.
Sri Jayendra Saraswati and Vijayendra Saraswati performed the Kumbabhishekam of the temple on June 23, 2002. Along with it started the temple renovation. All the deities here are crowded together at one place. So plans are on to create separate shrines for Ganesha, Muruga, Saptamata, Navagraha, etc., The three-tier Rajagopuram will be made a five-tier one.
Goddess Maragadambikai, with Sanganidhi and Padmanidhi as dwarapalakas, greets one at the entrance. The Ambal shrine is at a slightly more elevated level than the Pallikondeswarar Sannidhi to highlight that it was She who saved the Lord. Denoting prosperity are Kamadhenu and Kalpakavriksha in front of the goddess. Outside are her sons, Saligrama Ganapathi and Subramanya. On the left wall of the Ambal shrine is Raja Rajeswari in a standing posture after destroying Bhandasura. Behind is Mahalakshmi and on the right wall is Saraswathi. There are number of other deities and rishis — all beautiful sculptures.
The Ambal shrine is surrounded by Appar, Sundarar and Sambhandar together, apart from Sage Valmiki, Ekapada Trimurthi (one foot and three forms) of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva with their Divine vehicles, the Swan, Garuda and Nandi, and Purna Pushkala Sametha Sastha. Intricate carving is a highlight of all the deities and mounts.
On the left wall of the Valmikeshwarar shrine is Dakshinamurthy, in a form entirely different from the usual image. Here he is Dampathi (Gowri) Sametha Dakshinamurthy. Incidentally, the Lord is often erroneously referred to as Dampadya Dakshinamurthy. Clearly seen are sages, Patanjali and Vyagrapthar. The Lord, mounted on His bull mount is in a seated posture with one foot on Apasmasura and the other leg folded on a Yoga Pattai and embracing his Consort Gowri on a Rishaba Vahana.
Behind Valmikeshwarar is Lingothbhavar, again an intricately carved. Siva is standing inside a Lingam. Below is Varaha and on the left is the swan indicating Brahma. To the right is Thazhambu. Both depicting the well-known legend. On the wall on the right side is Brahma, away from whom are Sapta Mata (seven mothers) namely, Bhavani, Maageshwari, Koumari, Vaishnavi, Vaarahi, Indrani and Chamundi.
Standing next to them are Visalakshi and Kasi Viswanathar. Beyond is Venugopala, Adigara Nandhi and footprints of Lava-Kusha (Sons of Rama) just outside Ramalingeshwarar.
Inside the sanctum of Ramalingeshwar is Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata, Shatrughna and Anjaneya.
The shrine of Pallikondeswarar is situated on the right. The huge reclining figure of the Lord is awesome.
The Lord is in the Bhoga Sayana on the lap of Sarvamangala with all the Devas, Saptarishis, Brahma, Vishnu and Indra waiting. So he is called Vishapaharanar (one who swallowed poison) or Sarvamangala Sametha Sri Pallikondeswarar.
Contributions for the renovation work of the temple may be made to:
Mr. K. S. Venkararama Raju, Chairman, Trust Board, Sri Pallikondeswara Swamy Devasthanam, Surutapalli, Dasukuppam Post, Nagalapuram M.D., Chittoor District Pin-517 588 (A.P.)
Darshan Time:
Morning : 6.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.
Evening : 4.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.
Pradosham days morning 6.00 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. Sani Pradosham is especially important when about 15,000 devotees throng this temple. On the occasion of Maha Sivaratri well over 30,000 devotees wait for the darshan of Pallikondeswarar.

March 20, 2010

Today is the Indiblogger meet at GRT convention center . My rank is 49 out of 100 , and this is supposed to be a good thing supposedly – a week ago my rank was 36. The higher your rank is numerically, the better rated your blog is. I was in 2 minds about going to attend this event, to go or not to go? My memories of an event of the similar kind are not that great, to be very frank.

As I sat aimlessly in front of my desktop , I took at look at two of my older blogs http://tealspace.wordpress.com and http://spero-ergo-sum.blogspot.com. The former had some of my best posts (at least I really liked them 😀 ) and the latter was just the wisp of the ghost of a blog. I saw the latest post title on 2 of my oldest blogger buds urls – Rain and Titan. And so I automatically went to those pages to read through their posts – and I was reminded of 2005. Those crazy days of bloghopping and posting content on my blog. This grand tradition had just but barely caught onto Indian youth and Chennai was already lapping it up like Espresso on a Monday morning 😀

And today I look at the dismal state of my blog/blogs and wondered – may be I should not go for this event, after all? I was in the mid of a conversation with a bloggerbud of 5 years and he was trying his bit to convince me to go anyway 🙂 And what happened after was also an indicator that i should go. Another bloggerbud sms-es within the minute that his new blog got it’s first comment (with a certain glee, if I might add 😀 )

Although I have looked away from this realm of mine in cyberspace, it has never looked away from me, plus I think I owe it to Blogging to go out there again and meet fellow enthu bloggers and get that drive back!

January 30, 2010

Yes I started off the year on a note of optimism, and the title of this blog is well “I hope, therefore I am.” (Not I am depressed, therefore I am). I told to myself just like anyone else in this world that I would be starting this year anew with a renewed sense of zest and zeal which quite frankly I do not possess at the moment. Geared up with a lot of plans but am abysmally lagging behind. Bogged down by some shit, crap and adversity. And I am not going to divulge details. I will not yield to cribbing. Fear and Pain is not an option for me anymore. I’ll and we’ll all have to be stone-cold, rational and brave in the face of crap. If life throws shit right at the fan , I say “Bring it on!”